In the heart of the country, Great Plains farmers and ranchers produce a quarter of all US crops and 40% of our beef.

But they rely on a resource that has been slowly drying up, water.

Stephanie Sigh reports from Kansas for our ongoing series on climate change in water, tipping point.

So this is a small glimpse of what the dust bowl type situation was.

Brant Peterson farms grain in dry southwestern Kansas,

where erratic winds can whip dust into the sky at a moment's notice. It's difficult land to farm, but

Peterson is committed. My wife and I are both fifth generation farmers raising

the sixth generation. We've been to a lot of droughts. I won't say that it's

any worse than anybody else had, but I just do know that what I've had to do with has been tough.

Farms like Peterson's are a vital part of the global food system.

Much of the grain he grows heads to the massive cattle feedlots that surround him in Western Kansas,

powering the state's multi-billion dollar beef industry.

Nearly a quarter of all the stakes on our dinner plates

come from Kansas.

We are completely dependent on agriculture.

It is the lifeblood of our communities.

Katie Durham runs the groundwater management district in West Central, Kansas.

You just drive around town and anything from our banks to the implement dealers, you you know anything that you see in town is

all tightly related to agriculture and the agricultural industry here relies on

one increasingly scarce resource without groundwater we would really cease to exist.

Nearly all the groundwater in Western Kansas is tapped from the Ogilala Aquifer,

a massive reservoir that runs under parts of eight states from South Dakota to Texas.

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